A tale of two sales: Shoremont and Cal Ray

Someone on the Alki Beach Community Yahoo! group asked this weekend about the status of Shoremont, the old brick apartments at 57th/Alki (photo above) proposed for teardown-to-townhomes as first reported here last summer. We just happened onto new information about it, while researching a different apartment-complex sale that’s now the second half of this post. A recent list of “weekly top King County property sales” posted here says Cobb Construction just sold the Shoremont site to Lead Construction, for $2,200,000 (verified in county records). Further research doesn’t bring up much about “Lead Construction” but crossreferencing suggests it’s related to this firm (whose site mentions a “Lead Consulting” on this page). Meantime, this too has sold:

We mentioned back in October that this 18-unit apartment complex, the Cal Ray at 6000 California, was up for sale. The latest areawide sales report (scroll down to West Seattle) shows it’s sold, for a bit more than its listing price ($1,995,000 at the time of our original report; the sales report says it sold for $2,000,000, county records say $1,998,000). The listing flyer had mentioned “strong redevelopment potential” – but nothing’s been applied for at the site, so far. (Meantime, if you missed it over the weekend, we’ve learned of at least one more new apartment building in West Seattle’s future.)

Karl de Jong February 11, 2008 (8:09 am)

From the Washington State Secretary of State:

LEAD CONSTRUCTION, LLC
UBI Number 602446292
Category Limited Liability Regular
Profit/Nonprofit Profit
Active/Inactive Active
State of Incorporation WA
Date of Incorporation 11/12/2004
License Expiration Date 11/30/2008

Registered Agent Information
Agent Name RYAN PARDO
Address 17221 102ND AVE NE
City BOTHELL
State WA
ZIP 98011

LEAD CONSULTING, LLC
UBI Number 602603743
Category Limited Liability Regular
Profit/Nonprofit Profit
Active/Inactive Active
State of Incorporation WA
Date of Incorporation 03/15/2006
License Expiration Date 03/31/2008

Registered Agent Information
Agent Name CHRISTOPHER PARDO
Address 1601 8TH AVE N
City SEATTLE
State WA
ZIP 98109

WSB February 11, 2008 (8:18 am)

That’s what we meant when we wrote, crossreferencing (we also referred to the city business license database as well as corporations). Same people as the site we linked to. However, there is no distinct website for the construction company. Seems that designing and building are handled all-in-one.

AMDG February 11, 2008 (8:43 am)

This is what you need:
http://www.elementalarchitecture.com/about.html

SLK February 11, 2008 (11:58 am)

I’m thrilled that Cobb sold the project to Lead Construction (aka Pb Elemental). Most likely the Shoremont will still be torn down, but I am much more excited about what will be be built in its place. I’ve admired other projects by Pb Elemental- contemporary design, seemingly high quality construction – definitely not your run-of-the-mill townhouses. Perhaps they will even elect to go through Administrative Design Review so they can have more flexibility with the new design.

Spana February 11, 2008 (1:10 pm)

That is so depressing about the Shoremont, it is so gorgeous. I never thought I’d wish for a condo conversion, but in this case it would at least save the building.

Barbara Wuerth (Richey) February 11, 2008 (4:41 pm)

Losing this apartment building is a sad event. I have been in there many times and it is a truly classy place. I am no fan of condo conversions either, but I just hate to see this go. Nothing they build today can match the materials used here.

Alki February 11, 2008 (6:19 pm)

This building makes Alki such a quaint commmunity… it really adds to the aesthetics. I’m really sorry to see this go, as it sounds like it will. There are quite a few teardowns near Alki but this certainly isn’t one of them that I’d tear down! I wish I could buy it and keep it as apartments.

Tom February 12, 2008 (3:12 pm)

Not sure how long the Shoremont has been there, but we recently celebrated by father’s 90th birthday, and in going through some old photos I found one of he and my uncle standing in front of this building in about 1946. I never thought I’d reach ‘the old fuddy duddy’ stage, but I guess I have arrived, because if think that it is an absolute crime to take down this building. How would it not be ‘greener’ to preserve the facade and update the interior. I went to the Pb Elemental web site and could not help but notice that their architects are very adept at drawing straight lines and right angles. I suppose that it is no coincidence that the top six or seven guys in the company all look alike. There are plenty of real generic eyesores built in the 1950’s and 1960’s in West Seattle that they could demolish and no one would miss.

Dell February 12, 2008 (4:25 pm)

I agree there are alot of good looking buildings in Seattle, they all had their own time and place. With the soaring housing costs in Seattle now, I cannot imagine it would make sence to condoconvert this building. I live a few blocks away and walk down the alley behind the apartments, it looks like the building is sinking into the soil, maybe because it is so close to the shoreline. Anyway I am glad to here at least someone will be developing it that seems to care about their buildings, instead of those Cobb and Noland craftsman town homes that seem to be poping up everywhere in our neighborhood.

Paul February 12, 2008 (5:40 pm)

sorry, I am with the majority here, I would rather see the building saved. That to me is green construction. I am really sick and tired of the continued removal of wonderful old buildings so that we can have new. I just don’t agree that its “green” building. Soon we will have no true old buildings to reflect on.

Jane February 13, 2008 (7:22 am)

I think that is overreacting, it’s like the Denny’s in Ballard. There are people pushing to save antiquated buildings just to save buildings, an old Denny’s does not serve it’s purpose anymore at that location, and a bunch of “true old buildings” sitting vacant in our neighborhood also does not help anyone. There are alot of cute old buildings, and ones that serve public good should be saved, not just savings out of fear mongering that their will be no true old buildings left.

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